Quotes from Joseph D. Pistone

You have to have faith and confidence in yourself, that you are better than the bad guys you're dealing with. You have to have a lot of patience.

I'm always leery about bumping into somebody. One time I was with my wife in a restaurant, I saw somebody from my undercover days, and I got up and we just walked out.

I do a lot of lecturing, at colleges and police schools, and I always get the same questions: 'Do they really kill you? What do they do with the money? How do you become a wiseguy?'

Unless you are absolutely positive that your wife has no connection to the Mafia, even three or four times removed, do yourself a favor and do not bet her in a poker hand.

As a teen-ager I played cards, shot craps, played pool, went to the track, hung around social clubs. I knew that some card and crap games were run by the mob, and some social clubs were mob social clubs. Even as a kid I knew guys that were here today, gone tomorrow, never seen again, and I knew what had happened.

In the actual story I got with the Bonannos, but I had dealings with other crime families and other criminals, using the Bonannos as my credibility.

I didn't try to be a tough guy. I didn't try to be a big mobster. I was who I was. I didn't stop doing what I normally did. I worked out. I lifted weights. I ran. That's what I usually did.

One thing I take great pride in is that my case was the one that started the decline of the Mafia.

'Donnie Brasco' was 85 percent on the money. The only thing that they slanted was my feelings for Lefty and Sonny', and this idea that I didn't want to go through with seeing them in jail. I was never swayed. There was no conflict.

'The Godfather' is a great movie, but it gives them too much credit. What you don't see is what really takes place: the in-fighting, the lying to each other, the scheming against each other to get power.

When you wear a wire, you're always in danger.

'Our thing' is turning into 'my thing' within the Mafia, just as the larger American society is facing the new realities of the 'me generation.'

Watching the dailies and then watching the... episodes, it really hits you: 'Damn, I did that?' I must have been crazy to get into those situations.

I knew how wiseguys acted. I knew the mentality. I knew things to do and not to do. Keep your mouth shut at certain times. Don't get involved in things that don't concern you. Walk away from conversations and situations that aren't your business, before anybody asks you to take a hike.

I was Donnie Brasco, the Mafia guy, in character. But in my head, I was a special agent. I never lost sight of who I was or why I was there.

I grew up in a city, an Italian, knowing what the Mafia was.

What I learned about the mob wasn't through lectures at the academy.

I rarely carried a gun undercover.

If you're an L.C.N. guy, you don't have facial hair and you don't have long hair. You have to be neat all the time. It's the rule.

I was a street guy. I mean, I grew up in an Italian neighborhood with mob guys around. Where I grew up, you gambled, you shot dice, you played cards, you went to the track. So the mob to me was not strange, it was not like I was an F.B.I. agent from Salt Lake City.

With wiseguys, you don't know a guy by his name, only by his nickname. You never asked a guy for his last name.

I had no sense of guilt. All during the course of the operation, I knew it was a job.

A good undercover agent stays as close to the truth as possible, as close to your own personality and your own values as possible. This is the way you stay in character - you try to be yourself.